


Of Edges and Survival

by Kayssna



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 20:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5306327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayssna/pseuds/Kayssna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She cries the day she forgets her mother’s favorite perfume, and cries harder when she realizes she doesn’t remember her eldest brother’s face. (A look into the life of Cassandra de Rolo)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Edges and Survival

**Author's Note:**

> A quick thank you to Vaxleth who's awesome and encouraged me to write this.

Cassandra de Rolo was never supposed to be the leader of anything.

She was the youngest. She was heir to nothing except perhaps a plot of land if she decided not to marry. Leadership had always been Julius, Vespa’s and Percy’s to wield as those who were most likely to receive the burden of it.

It was simply the way the world turned. Her name was Cassandra, she was youngest, and she had almost no responsibility to her name. Now here she is, the last child of a doomed name and the leader of a rebellion. The world has no place for presumptions it seems.

She looks at her people tucked away in houses, takes a deep breath, and strikes the match of a rebellion.

“By the light of Pelor, please let this work,” She thinks, as she runs into the heart of the fighting.

*

Pelor does not grant prayers anymore it seems.

Cassandra wishes she could be disappointed. Instead she just feels numb. Like her soul’s been torn from her body perhaps it had been, taken alongside with all the members of the rebellion who had died for a failed chance of a better life.

She thinks, on the days where she lies in her bed and can’t find it within herself to get up, her living is out of a misplaced sense of duty than anything else. She’s been tasked with remembering all those who get lost in the battle against Lord and Lady Bastard and their followers.

She finds she does not want the job and fires herself for a few months.

She cries the day she forgets her mother’s favorite perfume, and cries harder when she realizes she doesn’t remember her eldest brother’s face.

She takes her mantle back and clings tightly.

It feels a little like remembrance on the days it doesn’t feel like drowning.

*

Cassandra has nightmares every night for years after the slaughter.

It’s always the same, the dull thuds of arrows hitting her back, Percy’s hand slipping from her grasp, the wet gurgle of blood in her throat.

Archie told her much later what happened to Percy. The same guards that had shot her had found him trying to pick her and carry her. They had shot him and then thrown him in the nearest river and then let his body float to wherever the river might end.

It hurts trying to imagine where his body may have ended. At least the rest of the family had been buried in the catacombs (the briarwood’s had been … strangely respectful of that) and had been laid to rest. Percy’s soul however was left somewhere far from his home. The idea of her brother being alone in death makes her shudder in sympathy.

She didn’t know Percy she realizes one day. She knows that if she happened to catch him on good days he would braid her hair with extra flair and tie ribbons in them. She knows if she caught him on really good days he would let her in on elaborate ploys to sneak food from the kitchens.

She doesn’t know much other than that. The second son had had little time for the youngest daughter.

She asks Archie about him one day on a whim. The feeling of homesickness overcoming her for a moment. Archie stops for a moment and seems to be feeling out the question.

“Your brother,” Archie says at last, “was a kind young man.”

She tries out the word. Kind. She finds it fits with the memory of gentle hands taming wild hair into braids, the smile of a shared plot, the image of a boy trying to carry his dying sister to safety.

“He was clever, and had a natural luck that astounds me to this day.” Archie chuckles, the sound hanging in the air for a moment as they both remember that one day his luck had worn out. Archie clears his throat, eyes misted over but clear as he drops the subject and starts to go over the work of Anita Bryon.

That night she’s greeted to the dull sound of arrows thudding into her back, the taste of blood in her mouth. This time, however, her brother’s arm stays firm in her grasp. Then she’s drowning falling into a freezing river the yell of “CASS!” ringing in her head.

She wakes with a gasp, and shivers under her threadbare covers until morning.

Kind. She decides is a word that left the world a time ago.

*

Cassandra finds her old diary one day. It’s hidden in a loose brick right beside her bed, it’s cover is covered in dust but the pages are still pristine filled with her handwriting.

“Happy birthday to my lovely Cass.” Ludwig’s careful script proclaims, when she turns over the cover. Cassandra takes a deep breath, digs her nails into her palms and starts to read.

She reads old diary entries and scoffs at how childish she had once been. She reads passages about her family over and over again laughing and crying and letting old wounds be torn open and then healed again.

After a while she starts writing new entries. Entries detailing secret passages, the project under the Castle, battle plans, everything she knows all written in-between drawings of old memories.

*

“Lead the way, Sister.” Her kind eldest brother says, his eyes slightly lost as he takes her in. His eyes are tinged with sadness but also hope. She thinks that once upon a time her eyes had looked that too.

She thinks of lonely years, of hiding in plain sight, of the childhood she’ll never get back. She nods, and starts to lead them down.

“May the light of Pelor guide the way,” Percy mumbles behind her.

“And may we have the grace to know that even a match can be mightier than the darkness,” Cass finishes.

Percy gives her startled smile, and Cassandra can’t help but return it.

May Pelor grant them all a little mercy.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! If you did please leave a kudos/comment. :) Thank you and I hope you have a lovely day/night.


End file.
